What's the Last Thing You Remember?
by Vulcanlover12
Summary: When Logan wakes again, all he remembers is drowning. But he sees two faces that he never realized he'd missed so much - the two faces he fought so hard for during the Sentinel War.


**A/N: Okay, first of all: SPOILERS! I saw DoFP last night and ERMAHGAWDITWASSOGOOD. So, if you don't want the ending kinda-sorta spoiled for you, DO NOT PASS THIS POINT!**

**This includes my two OCs Sky and Amber Howlett, both part of Logan's family (Sky's his wife and Amber's [obviously] his daughter).**

***coughpleaseReviewcough***

* * *

Soft-tuned music filled his ears and warm, golden light filtered through thin-worn curtains, hitting Logan's eyelids and coaxing him from his deep sleep. Hazel eyes cracked open and he glanced around the room he was in; various bookshelves and furniture were scattered about and he glanced over his shoulder, wary of any skinny arm that could've been slung over his neck.

Seeing no one but rumpled sheets, he slowly sat up with several grunts and inward profanities. He was wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans, just as he always had during the past…his past. The one no one would remember but him. He felt a pang in his heart at the thought; no one…

He stood and took a stiff step toward the door, only to hear a school bell ring. That school bell he had heard so long ago. The doorknob was sparkling crystal and he hesitated opening it. What would he find on the other side? He mentally snorted. That's something that a poet would think of. And he was damn well sure he wasn't going to become one.

The door creaked quietly as he pulled it inward, thus revealing a crowded hallway and the murmurings of child-toned voices. Stepping out of the room, he spotted Bobby Drake - Iceman - standing in the doorway at the end of the hall. Another familiar figure stepped out and Marie - Rogue - bright-eyed and widely-smiling, spotted Logan and beamed in his direction with Bobby copying before they both turned the corner and out of sight.

Logan walked down the hall - slowly, he daresay intimately - breathing in the Institute again. He realized, upon reflecting his past - the other past - that he never would have thought he could've missed one place, and the people in it, so dearly much. He turned the corner of the hall and came to the old, rickety-yet-sturdy staircase. Stepping down, still slowly, he caught sight of white-and-gray flecked hair talking with a small group of older kids.

"Storm," he murmured endearingly. The first level of the Institute, the one he'd so mad many memories, looked exactly as it was all those years ago. Bratty, snot-nosed kids running around causing a damn racket and bustling to the classes they were late for.

"Late rise, Logan," stated Hank McCoy's achingly familiar voice as he passed by, dark-colored sideburns (the only threatening competitor to Logan's own reigning muttonchops) and kind brown eyes with unmistakably blue fur all like that as Logan remembered.

"Hank," Logan echoed.

The crowd that once inhabited the hallway was now beginning to dissipate and the study hall located at the end of the corridor was in sight. Bright red hair caught the corner of his eye and his face softened at the sight of a very old, very dear friend.

"Jean."

Her head turned, green eyes glinting. "Logan," she greeted warmly, lips quirking upward. She leaned against the doorway to the main office, delicate arms crossed over her ample chest and hair cascading down her shoulders.

Logan only nodded in acknowledgement, not trusting his voice. The door opened a little wider and an annoying, but welcome, face came into view. Scott cupped Jean's face in his hand and Logan knew he was staring at him through his ruby-tinted visor. Now that things were different, the old I-am-the-vengeance-I-am-the-night look disappeared and the I-may-still-be-an-asshole-but-I-still-slightly-consider-us-to-be-sort-of-friends-but-not-enemies look was obvious, as if daring the feral to make a move.

"Some things never change," Logan muttered with a faint grin.

Scott's brow furrowed slightly but he turned his attention back to the red-head beside him. "See you later," he said before giving her a chaste kiss and hurrying off.

Jean's eyes scanned Logan's look of distance and she tilted her head slightly. "Is everything all right?" she asked quietly, confusedly.

"Yeah," he replied, finally finding his voice, "it looks like everything's fine."

Jean's lips twitched upward again and she pushed herself from the doorframe and followed the general path that Scott had taken. Logan didn't even need to see the old man to know he was reading.

"Professor," he greeted.

"Logan, what do you want?" Charles asked, slapping his book shut and placing it on the desk in front of him. "Don't you have a class to teach?"

Logan's brow furrowed. "Class," he echoed disbelievingly.

"Yes – History."

"History."

Charles wise, old eyes lifted up to him as he maneuvered his hover-chair around his desk. All it took was one brief brush of his mind for Charles to know that this wasn't the Logan be brought to the mansion years ago in his time.

"Welcome back, old friend," he stated, eyes crinkling with an unshed smile.

Logan curtly nodded. "It's good to be back – though, you're going to have to fill me in on what's happened over the last fifty years."

Charles' eyes crinkled even more. "Yes, we'll have to catch up – won't we?"

After a moment, the telepath leaned forward slightly, staring intently into Logan's eyes. "Tell me - what's the last thing you remember?"

Images flashed and Logan's breath hitched almost undetectably. "Drowning."

"Mornin', Dad."

Logan's eyes widened.

"Good morning, Amber," Charles stated, directing his attention to the girl behind the feral mutant, who still had not even recognized that oh-so-dearly missed, child-like, innocent voice.

Logan slowly turned, eyes catching uncannily, eerily similar hazel irises. He couldn't believe the sight before him: his daughter, the one he hardly got to know before she was killed defending the mutant race from sentinels, stood there bright smile and all.

Her height reached to about the middle of his chest and her stature was lean and tough-muscled, even for a little girl. She wore his same old leather jacket – it dwarfed her with its sheer size in comparison to her small form. Under that was a green, cotton button-up and blue jeans with the gold-plated belt and square-toed leather boots. His silver dog tags, the ones that he remembered throwing away, hung around her neck and reached her stomach because of the chain's length.

She held a stack of books in her arms, held to her chest, with her brown, leather satchel-purse slung over her shoulder. Her light-brown hair shone in the morning light and those aforementioned hazel eyes burned with that same amused spark that always seemed to linger there.

"Amber," Logan whispered, taking in the sight of his only daughter that he'd kept a picture in his pocket for so long, keeping her memory close to his heart as he fought for his kind. As he fought for the survival of mutants.

"Dad, ya look a bit ghosty. Don't tell me you're havin' nightmares again," she said with a quirked eyebrow and wry smile, voice teasing and amused but not with the scorn that those words had usually brought in the past. He smirked despite himself at the image; they looked so similar at times people started to think that she was his female clone, not his eighteen year-old daughter.

"No, I'm not," he replied, shrugging it off. "Don't you have class to get to?"

The words slipped from his lips before he could stop them: he didn't want to see her walk away so soon. Too soon-

"Alright, alright," she said, waving her free hand at him, "I'll get there - though your class is acting up a bit and tossing the statuette of George Washington around like a volleyball - and, they just broke it." She winced slightly as her heightened hearing caught sound of the marble crashing into the ground, not even feeling sorry for the wrath that she knew would befall them from their teacher.

Logan heard this, too, and grumbled incoherent words.

"Well, see ya at lunch, Ol' Man," Amber tossed over her shoulder as she walked down the hall and out of sight. Logan smiled again.

"She's happy here - now."

Logan nodded thoughtfully, storing the image in his mind for later inspection. Suddenly the scent of pine forests and fresh-fallen rain hit Logan's nostrils, as well as sweet tendrils of coffee.

The one woman who had changed his life so dearly entered the hall, carrying two mugs of steaming black coffee. "Black, no sugar," she informed him. "You never had your morning cup, so I figured I'd give it to you now."

Logan smiled and accepted the porcelain mug from her grasp. Sky's bright blue eyes twinkled at him teasingly, dark chocolate hair in a sweeping ponytail. "You slept later than usual," she continued, leaning against the door frame and seemingly oblivious to the Professor's existence.

"Sky, I think your Physics class in on a rampage," Charles said with some amusement. The two Howlett's classes always ended up doing something drastic whenever their teacher wasn't present and accounted for.

"Oh, I know," she nodded with a devious smirk. "They're gonna get extra homework over the weekend."

She stood fully and gave Logan a chaste kiss before walking off, hips swaying and hair bouncing.

Logan's smile turned into a stricken-school-boy grin and he took another sip of the coffee that Sky had seemed to be a master in making. Charles cleared his throat softly and indicated a plush recliner in the corner of his office with a slight tilt of his bald head.

"Now - let's begin, shall we?"


End file.
